Science fiction -- Periodicals; Science fiction, American -- Periodicals
Larry and I have found cursory mention of that. But I doubt if the
group of My Lord Howe's gay young blades who were sent north to
capture Major Atwood ever reported exactly what happened to them. The
old Dutch ferryman divulged that he had been hired to ferry the
homecoming major; this, too, is recorded. But Tony Green and his
fellow officers, sent to apprehend the colonial major, found him
inexplicably murdered; and by dawn they were back at the Bowling
Green, white-faced and shaken.
They told some of what had happened to them, but not all. They could
not expect to be believed, for instance, if they said that though they
were unafraid of a negro's tale of a ghost, they had themselves
encountered two ghosts, and had fled the premises!
Those two ghosts were only Larry and Tina!
The negro babbled of a shining cage appearing in the garden. That, of
course, was undoubtedly set down as nonsense. Tony Green and his
friends went to the garden and examined the body of Major Atwood. What
had killed him no one could say. No bullet had struck him. There were
no wounds, no knife thrust, no sword slash. Tony held the lantern with
its swaying yellow glow close to the murdered man's body. The August
night was warm; the garden, banked by trees and shrubbery, was
breathless and oppressively hot; yet the body of Atwood seemed frozen!
He had been dead but a short while, and already the body was stiff.
More than that, it was ice cold. The face, the brows were wet as
though frost had been there and now was melted!
Tony Green's hand shook as he held the lantern. He tried to tell his
comrades that Atwood had died from failure of the heart. Undoubtedly
it was that. He had seen what he supposed was an apparition;
something had frightened him; and a weak heart had brought his death.
* * * * *
Then, in another part of the garden, one of the searching officers
found a sheet of parchment scroll with writing on it. Yet it was not
parchment, either. Some strange, white, smooth fabric which crumpled
and tore very easily, the like of which this young British officer of
Howe's staff had never seen before. It was found lying in a flower bed
forty or fifty feet from Atwood's body. They gathered in a group to
examine it by the light of the lantern. Writing! The delicate script
of Mary Atwood! A missive addressed to her father. It was strangely
written, evidently not with a quill.
Tony read it with an awed, frightened voice:
"Father, beware of Tugh! Beware of Tugh! And, my dear
Father, good-by. I am departing, I think, to the year of our
Lord, 2930. Cannot explain--a captive--good-by--nothing you
can do--
Mary."
Strange! I can imagine how strange they thought it was. Tugh--why he
was the cripple who had lived down by the Bowling Green, and had
lately vanished!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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